A Good Visit

For the last week, my friend Jocey and her boyfriend Jason have been in town visiting from NH. After weather delays pushed their arrival back by two days, they finally arrived and we started off on a backpacking trip less than 12 hours later. We did a 4-day loop in the Columbia River Gorge and it was great! The first leg of the trip was a more or less uneventful 9ish mile stretch that parallels I84 for a ways before climbing out of the Gorge. The first campsite was nothing to write home about, but it served its purpose. The next day is when the real adventure began.

We knew day two would be a tough day; lots of elevation and around 11 miles. After a wrong turn early in the day, we found ourselves at Casey Camp. All the Gorge trails are connected so it wasn’t too big a deal. The wrong turn ended up shaving a little distance off our trek, but adding pretty significantly to the terrain difficulty. To get back on track, we took the Casey Creek Trail, which we later found out climbs just shy of 3000 feet in only 2.1 miles. From what we can tell from maps and such, it’s the steepest trail in the entire Gorge, and it was tough. 20 steps. Stop. Breathe. Repeat.

After a rest atop the ridge, we continued on through an awesome forest to our camp alongside Rainy Lake. It was a beautiful camp on a secluded lake. It made the climb all worth it. That night there was a lunar eclipse and we all woke up to watch it. What a great treat! The stars in the wilderness are so much brighter without all the light pollution from the cities. Watching the eclipse and catching glimpses of a few shooting starts was definitely a trip highlight.

The next day we trekked onward to the shores of Wahtum Lake. Along the way Mt Hood showed itself to us and it sure was a sight to behold. Rainy Lake was beautiful, but Wahtum Lake had it beat. Our campsite on the shore was surrounded by blueberry bushes. We had blueberries and granola for snacks. Yum!

The last day, we hiked out 13 miles along the Eagle Creek Trail. We passed too many waterfalls to name and went for a dip along the way in a pristine swimming hole. We arrived back at the trailhead just before 4 pm and were all pretty tired and ready for showers. Over about 40 miles of trials, we had seen several deer, snakes, and slugs. We even found a pretty big bear print and some mountain lion scat.

After a day’s rest, we headed out for more fun, but this time we traveled by car. We went to the Tilamook cheese factory and then to the Oregon coast. We stopped at a few state beaches and parks along the drive North to Astoria. We visited a few of the spots where the movie, The Goonies, was filmed. Then we ate a fantastic meal at a place called The Silver Salmon, in Astoria. With full bellies, we headed back to Portland.

On the last day of Joc and Jason’s visit, we slept late, ate breakfast, and then wandered around downtown Portland’s Chinatown, and the Saturday Market. It was a great visit, and I was sad to see them go. I don’t have any pictures because I didn’t have a camera, but Joc took plenty so when she sends me a copy of the picture disc, I’ll post some.

I’ll finish with one of the more memorable quotes from the weekend:

Jason: “It’s pretty hard to starve to death. You’ve got to really want it.”